No ticket, no laundry

Gen­er­al Motors claims that a rival Chi­nese auto mak­er has infringed it’s intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights by steal­ing the design of a small car. But there seems to be a flaw in the GM claim. bq. … the Spark design, which GM obtained in its 2002 acqui­si­tion of South Korea’s for­mer Dae­woo Motor Sales Corp., was nev­er patent­ed in Chi­na and thus isn’t pro­tect­ed by China’s intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty laws, said Zhang Qin, deputy com­mis­sion­er of the State Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Office. (“AP via Mia­mi Herald”:http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/9595409.htm) IP is ter­ri­to­ri­al­ly based: in Chi­na, in the USA, every­where. So if the Chi­nese Min­is­ter is right, GM hasn’t much of a legal case on patents. Of course… it may have a case on oth­er aspects of the pro­tec­tion of indus­tri­al designs (the look of the car), depend­ing on whether those were reg­is­tered.

Peter Gallagher

Peter Gallagher is student of piano and photography. He was formerly a senior trade official of the Australian government. For some years after leaving government, he consulted to international organizations, governments and business groups on trade and public policy.

He teaches graduate classes at the University of Adelaide on trade research methods and the role of firms in trade and growth and tweets trade (and other) stuff from @pwgallagher